FROGS AND SCORPIONS

By LINDEN FIELDING

This story is based on actual events. The globalization of communication, travel and business opens the door from your community or city to businesses and countries around the world. This also opens the door to massively different mindsets, beliefs, and attitudes. Clashes occur with the potential of destr

• Language: English
• Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC
• Release date: Sep 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781684864928

LINDEN FIELDING

Linden Fielding grew up in the Western United States on a large family farm. He received a degree from Utah State University in Agricultural and Irrigation Engineering. He married Ann Godfrey and they raised a family of 5 children on the farm. After raising their family, he became General Manager of an international construction company, traveling and conducting business in many countries of the Middle East, Europe, Asia, the Orient, and most states of the United States.

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Frogs and Scorpions

Copyright © 2023 by Linden Fielding. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, descriptions, entities, and incidents included in the story are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, and entities is entirely coincidental.

The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of URLink Print and Media.

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Published in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023914723

ISBN 978-1-68486-485-0 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68486-492-8 (Digital)

03.08.23

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

Notes

PREFACE

Capitalists, socialists, communists, and dictatorships are the dramatically different ideologies and governments around the world. But the universal need for food, shelter, and infrastructure are in every country of the world. Saudi Arabia is known for its oil exports to countries all around the globe. To a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia also exports cement powder. This story is about Saudi Cement Company, an exporter of cement powder, and Dome Technology, an American company that was contracted to build a cement export terminal in Saudi Arabia.

This is a true story of how this common need and agreement was overshadowed by the vastly different social and cultural norms. The resulting conflict threatened to destroy one or both companies.

In today’s politically correct environment, some may cringe at this blatant illustration of a business conflict between two profoundly different cultures. When it comes to commerce, communication, and travel, we are in one world where it is just as easy to call or communicate with someone across an ocean as it is across town or across the street.

Chapter

1

Two million dollars! shouted the Arab. You took two million dollars from us! Veins stood out on his neck and forehead as he shouted. His eyes were bloodshot and buggy. He stood up from his chair and shook his fist. With every word, a spray of spit added to the verbal barrage levied at the three Americans across the table—three Americans against ten from the Saudi Arabian company.

The Arab was furious he was in this situation at this point. His pride was badly battered. There would have been some honor in a physical wound with a knife or bullet. But to him, this was treachery of the highest order. They had been outmaneuvered in their home country, their hometown. They had grown smug, feeling they held all the cards and had all the control. That smugness gave them a blind spot, and it had been exploited.

The situation had become desperate, and desperate measures were taken to preserve the Americans in the room and the company they represented. This was the climax, the last assault, that would ultimately determine who returned home successful and who would return demoralized. Life for those sitting on both sides of the table would be different after today.

The battleground was not a muddy, pockmarked field on a dreary battlefield but a posh London office where the two sides had met before. The Saudi’s were not shy about flaunting their wealth. It was acceptable middle ground for both sides.

The Americans sat silent. They had expected the tirade and stoically sat, allowing the storm to rage.

A major casualty of the conflict was already apparent, Mr. Al-Hossari, the boorish, grizzled, project manager of the Saudi company had been left at home, out of the battle. Much of the conflict and focus of this summit had been precipitated by his inflammatory words, arrogance, and misjudgments.

Three Years Earlier

The project got underway three years earlier when the Saudi company sought bids to build a cement export facility at the Port of Dammam in Saudi Arabia. They insisted the general contractor be an American company and provide the latest in technology. The unspoken reason was they wanted the bragging rights that came with employing an American company. Neither company was large on the global stage, but both companies were familiar with international business.

I bring you a request to bid on a cement export terminal to be built in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, explained Harry James. Harry had been born in Iraq. He emigrated and settled in Canada in the 1980s, when permission for such a move was easy to obtain. Harry was a college professor but found his knowledge and contacts in the Middle East were far more valuable than teaching. He helped Canadian and American companies do business in the Middle East by greasing the wheels between the two vastly different cultures and business norms.

Besides Harry, there were only two companies in the meeting that day in Pennsylvania: the one I represented, which would build the large reinforced concrete domes to store several shiploads of cement powder, and a mechanical company, Fuller, who would supply and install much of the critical machinery necessary to move the product to a waiting ship.

We are interested, I said after hearing specifics of the project. I’ll gather information and should have you a preliminary bid by this time next week.

I had been at Dome Technology for seven years as the general manager. As such, I was usually involved in sales of the larger projects. The owner and chairman of the board was an imaginative and talented inventor but lacking in business and financial aptitude. I was hired to improve the financial footing and grow the company. It didn’t take long after being hired to learn that the company was broke and operating on fumes.

It took several years, but with a revised advertising program, sales effort, and financial policy, the company was on solid footing and growing over twenty percent a year.

Good, said Harry. And there is one more thing. Linden, your company needs to be the general contractor on this job.

That is not a good idea, I immediately protested. Our company has never been the general contractor on a job like this. It would make more sense for Fuller to be the general contractor. They are a much larger company and have done business in Saudi Arabia before.

We’ve already considered it, injected the Fuller representative. But it’s against our company policy.

The Saudi company has asked that an American company be the general contractor, argued Harry. They have several reasons for requiring this. If you want a shot at landing this project, your company needs to step up.

"To build the storage buildings is no problem, even in Saudi Arabia. But, taking to take on the position of general contractor is a whole different ballgame. I can’t give you an answer until I discuss it with the chairman of the board. I can tell you now, I’m not in favor of it. It pushes